Insights on

governance, risk
and compliance
May 2010

A risk-based approach
to segregation of duties

The complexity of todays enterprise systems

leaves many companies struggling with the basic
internal control of segregation of duties.

Segregation of Duties (SoD) is top of mind for many professionals,

from compliance managers to executive-level officers. The increased
interest in SoD is due, in part, to control-driven regulations
worldwide and the executive-level accountability for their successful
implementation. However, the underlying reason for these
regulations is more important: no individual should have excessive
system access that enables them to execute transactions across
an entire business process without checks and balances. Allowing
this kind of access represents a very real risk to the business, and
managing that risk in a pragmatic, effective way is more difficult
than it seems.
If this concept is common sense, why do so many companies
struggle with SoD compliance and why does it repeatedly
stifle information technology (IT), internal audit and finance
departments? In large part, the difficulty rests in the complexity and
variety of the systems that automate key business processes, and
the ownership and accountability for controlling those processes.
SoD is a basic internal control that attempts to ensure no single
individual has the authority to execute two or more conflicting
sensitive transactions with the potential to impact financial
statements. Without proper guidance and a sound approach, SoD
implementation, testing, remediation and mitigation may appear to
be extremely difficult to achieve. However, a risk-based approach
can make the effort manageable for a company of any size.
Companies dont need to create complex role structures or
undertake expensive system overhauls in order to meet SoD
compliance and the principle of least privilege. By focusing on the
transactions that pose the greatest risk to the business, a company
can quickly understand the issues related to access and determine
at a level that satisfies management and audit parties that
appropriate steps are being taken to remedy and mitigate the root
causes of the issues.
This document outlines a practical, risk-based approach to
SoD compliance.

Insights on governance, risk and compliance | May 2010

Business drivers and

regulatory compliance
Proper SoD is a long-established method of preventing fraud and maintaining checks and
balances within a company. However, the recent regulatory focus on public companies
has driven businesses to truly understand what access their employees have within their
application portfolio. Control-driven regulations, like Sarbanes-Oxley in the United States
for instance, have not only imposed an unprecedented rigor around controls, they also
underscore the importance of an integrated IT and financial controls approach to managing
risk within a company.
Across the globe, existing and proposed regulations continue to bring the issue of SoD
and controls to the forefront of agendas for auditors and executives alike. These include
the European Unions 8th Directive, which is viewed to some degree as Europes SOX
equivalent; J-SOX, the Japanese Sarbanes-Oxley version; and Basel II, which addresses the
method that financial institutions use to calculate capital adequacy and its alignment with
the companys risk profile.
The list of regulations continues to grow, and in response, compliance initiatives expand and
consume corporate resources. As companies continually rationalize spending and optimize
budgets, a pragmatic, balanced approach to internal controls is expected. Regulators
have listened to companies needs in order to move towards legislation and guidance that
balances the level of effort required to understand risk. An example is the release of Public
Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) Auditing Standard No. 5, which pushed companies
and their auditors to focus more on risk and significant concerns that could affect the
business and financial statements; a clear message that a risk-based methodology is
fundamental to an effective and efficient internal control framework.
In summary, not implementing SoD as part of a robust framework puts the organization at
risk of failing to meet regulatory and compliance requirements. But this is not the only risk.
The cost of fraud and other internal control failures is well documented in dollar values,
which is where the cost starts to feel more real. In addition, other costs are often hidden,
such as:

Lost shareholder value because the market no longer has confidence in the
organization

Missed business opportunities because your organizations credit rating changes and
financing becomes more expensive

Costs to recover from reputational damage

A risk-based approach enables organizations to manage but not entirely mitigate these
risks in a balanced and efficient way that reflects the value that is being protected.

Insights on governance, risk and compliance | May 2010

A risk-based methodology

A risk-based methodology, such as the one discussed in this document, focuses on the
issues that pose the greatest threat to the business and its financial statements. Whether
the drivers for investing in SoD compliance are regulatory compliance, fraud prevention
or a new ERP system, a company cannot eliminate every potential risk. Rather, the
goal is to hone in on the risks that threaten pre-defined thresholds of value. These are
typically determined at the outset of the SoD initiative. Materiality, fraud thresholds or
financially significant limits quantifying the impact of realization of financial, operational or
reputational risks are examples of thresholds that serve to measure the financial sensitivity
of SoD conflicts.
SoD dictates that problems such as fraud, material misstatement and financial statement
manipulation have the potential to arise when the same individual is allowed to execute
two or more conflicting sensitive transactions. Sensitive transactions drive processes with
the potential to impact a companys financial statements, operational activities or market
reputation. Many companies strive for zero SoD conflicts in their user population, though
this is often unachievable, unsustainable and unrealistic given the number of employees
within a typical business function. Separating discrete job responsibilities into task-oriented
roles can often result in inefficiencies and unnecessary costs.
Ultimately, it is critical for the company to understand and assess the landscape of current
conflicts, reduce them to the extent possible for a given staffing model (via remediation
initiatives) and apply mitigating controls to the remaining issues. This approach does
not yield zero SoD conflicts, but demonstrates that management has evaluated existing
conflicts and reduced residual risk to an acceptable level through tested and controlled
processes. Typically, this solution is palatable to auditors, regulators and financial reporting
stakeholders alike, and promotes the awareness of risk beyond a compliance-only exercise.

SoD glossary
Materiality the financial threshold or impact a potential SoD conflict can have
over a companys financial statements
Principle of least privilege the concept that system users should have access
to only the resources absolutely necessary to perform their job responsibilities
Segregation of duties (SoD) an internal control that attempts to ensure
that no single individual should have control over two or more conflicting
sensitive transactions
Sensitive transaction a business transaction with the potential to impact a
companys financial statements
SoD conflict the pairing of two conflicting sensitive transactions or
business activities

Insights on governance, risk and compliance | May 2010

The SoD roadmap

Most successful SoD initiatives consist of five phases: business definition, technical definition, testing, mitigation and remediation.
Phase 1
Business
definition

Phase 2
Technical
definition

Phase 3
Testing

Phase 4
Mitigation

Phase 5
Remediation

Phase 1: Business definition

The objective of this phase is to gain an understanding of the scope of sensitive transactions and conflicts that drive the companys key
business processes. These are also the transactions that pose the greatest fraud risk to the organization should someone possess excessive
access. During this phase, thresholds are determined based on the risk and impact to the company for each potential SoD conflict pairing.
As this step lays the foundation for everything that follows; proper
execution is critical. Many companies fail in this early stage by
taking on too many conflict pairings that do not meet the threshold
level of risk, resulting in onerous requirements that ultimately
cannot be met or are excessively costly for the risks they are
attempting to manage. For example, a company may be concerned
with allowing the same individual to both create a vendor purchase
order and modify the customer pricing master file. However, the
combination of the two may constitute such a low risk that it does
not warrant inclusion in the companys conflict matrix. It might be
more appropriate to include potential conflicts for a user who could
modify the vendor master file, create a vendor purchase order and
issue payment to vendors as the combination represents the higher
risk to the company.
Conflict matrix
The output of the business definition phase is a matrix of potential
conflicts, independent of the supporting IT application driving each
transaction, but including the corresponding risk statement related
to each conflict. The risk statement answers the question, Why
do we care about this transaction pairing or combination? and
demonstrates what could go wrong should someone have enough

access or authority. The risk statement might say, A user could

create a fictitious vendor or make unauthorized changes to vendor
master data, initiate purchases to this vendor and issue payment
to this vendor. In this case, the vendor might be the fraudulent
employee with an excessive and inappropriate level of access in
the system.
Generally, the matrix and corresponding risk statements differ
among companies, industries, business models and even locations
within the same company, depending on what processes are
significant. It is not uncommon for a large global company to have
more than one matrix due to differences in the business processes
by location or business unit. For example, a company may have
a manufacturing business unit with a large amount of inventory,
requiring an SoD matrix that focuses on specific inventory
transactions. They may also have a service-based business unit
necessitating a focus on project accounting, requiring a different
SoD matrix. Though knowledge of similar businesses and industries
can help to establish the conflict matrix, each business unit must
perform a customized analysis of its conflicting transactions in
order to capture the real risk for that particular business model.

Insights on governance, risk and compliance | May 2010

Phase 2: Technical definition

The technical definition uses the completed conflict matrix as a tool to help answer the question, Which applications are able to execute
the defined sensitive transactions, and how are they executed in the system? The company or business unit must map each sensitive
transaction to its associated access rights in the application that enable that transaction. This critical step feeds the data analysis when
setting up access during implementation or to yield the testing results in live environments. While this mapping task may appear to be
trivial, this step is often where many companies encounter problems due to a lack of understanding of the potential ways a transaction
could be executed in a particular application.

Application mapping and exclusions

Exclusions refer to the user IDs and menus or access rights
intentionally omitted in the SoD analysis. Not every user ID that
appears in the analysis represents a real conflict. Often system
or process accounts, IT administrators, IT operations and support
personnel may have access to multiple conflicting menus. This may
not actually represent a conflict if the goal is to only capture the
business users with SoD conflicts.

1: Create/modify/delete customer pricing master/structure

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Sales and receivables

Create/modify/delete customer pricing master/structure

Create/modify/delete manual sales invoices/manual service invoices

Create/modify/delete customer credit memos

Post cash receipts and apply to customer account

Create/modify/delete customer master data

Application 3

Application 4

Create/modify/delete customer pricing master/structure

14

31

Create/modify/delete manual sales invoices/manual service invoices

14

Create/modify/delete customer credit memos

19

Post cash receipts and apply to customer account

13

Create/modify/delete customer master data

Create/modify/delete sales orders/service orders

24

Create/modify/delete customer credit limits

Sales and receivables

Purchasing
8

Create/modify/delete purchase orders

Create/modify/delete vendor master file data

Approve purchase orders

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The risk-based SoD process requires a company to discover all the

potential methods for executing a transaction in order to understand
the full potential for fraud, not just the limited view of the known
methods. Mapping all of the ways a user could potentially execute a
transaction is critical to accurately depicting SoD.

SoD mapping

Application 1

SoD testing application

applicability (count) chart

Count of mapped
access rights

The application mapping is the rule-set by which sensitive transactions

are tested in the relevant systems. For example, vendor-update rights
may be executed through a series of menus within a given application.
The presence of these menus assigned to specific users should be
mapped, walked-through and documented in order for the company
to accurately test for a particular conflict. The challenge is that in
most modern applications there is more than one way to execute
the same transaction. For example, there may be 20 ways to pay a
vendor in an application, but the company may use only five of them.
Moreover, the company is typically not aware of the other 15 ways
and usually does not restrict access to or control these other methods
to execute a vendor payment.

11

Create/change standard or actual costing

12

Create/change to material master data

Inventory transactions
X

13

Record inventory movements or production

32

14

Record/modify shipment

2: Create/modify/delete manual sales/service invoices

8

Create/modify/delete purchase orders

One of the key fallacies in menu (or access) mapping is that one only
needs to map the transactions that are actually used in the application.
While this method will usually capture many of the executed transactions,
it will fail to identify the menus business users do not use but could
use to execute a particular transaction. Even though menus may be
deactivated or not provisioned to a set of business users, they must be
mapped to be able to demonstrate they have been considered and it is
possible to see the entire rule-set by which SoD conflicts are being tested.

Alternatively, to facilitate continuous controls monitoring, companies

often include IT users in reports on standard sensitive transaction
usage and SoD conflicts. Typically, read-only or inquiry functionality
in the application should be excluded as it does not permit execution
of sensitive transactions. Regardless of the treatment of the
transaction exclusion, it is vital to document all omissions, their
rationale and to communicate this information to regulators and
compliance stakeholders.

Insights on governance, risk and compliance | May 2010

The SoD roadmap

Phase 3: Testing
The testing phase draws on data from the business definition and technical definition phases to produce an analysis of users with SoD
conflicts. The results highlight the SoD conflicts in a number of ways by user and by role and (or) group for example and shows the
extent of the conflicts among the companys user population. This analysis, in combination with the business and technical definitions,
typically serves as the compliance testing package disclosed to management, audit parties and regulators.
Intra-application vs. cross-application testing
Very few companies have just one system or one single platform
on which key sensitive transactions are executed. Transactions and
financial statements are often processed through an interconnected
portfolio of applications and automated business processes. Typically,
users have access to numerous systems when executing a particular
job function. This access across multiple systems often yields the
potential for fraud and control issues. Consequently, it is essential
that the company not only perform intra-application (i.e., within one
application) testing, but cross-application (i.e., between two or more
applications) testing to reveal the underlying risk of an SoD conflict.
Invariably, the question arises over which systems to include in the
testing scope. The single consideration is whether any of these
systems drive the sensitive transactions defined in the SoD conflict
matrix. For example, identifying all the places with the potential to
modify the vendor master file will yield the scope of applications
to be included in testing for that particular transaction. If this
capability resides in multiple applications, the company should
include these applications in testing.
End-to-end processing
When a single individual is able to execute end-to-end processing of
a transaction, this indicates a lack of control over the multiple steps
within a single business process. Typically, in this scenario, a user
can complete a whole process from initiation and authorization to
approval and execution without any checks or balances.
This type of systemic problem can occur in lean workforces or
departments where job responsibilities are shared (i.e., anyone can
serve as a backup for anyone else). Data analysis may detect the
same users in multiple conflict tests within a particular business
process. If this scenario arises, the company may need to place
special emphasis on the use of mitigating controls or consider fully
remediating the issue by redesigning the process entirely.

This issue is especially important to company workforce downsizing.

When employees who are in charge of key processes are released
(and not replaced), job functions or roles are often combined.
What was once a segregated access model now becomes a heavily
conflicted population of users with significant control issues.
Smart companies assess the SoD impact of employee terminations
and plan accordingly prior to actual termination of personnel.
Where formerly segregated processes must be combined, strong
mitigating controls should be applied and monitored in the interim.

Conflict risk ratings

No two SoD conflicts are equal; each conflict poses a different
risk to the business and ideally, each conflict should be rated
according to the likelihood and impact of a user executing the
conflicting transactions. Companies have adopted many schemes
and notations for risk-ranking their conflicts. Companies have
defined tiers of high, medium and low based on the output
of their risk calculation. It is not uncommon to see conflicts
deemed prohibited within the risk criteria, indicating conflicts
that are unconditionally barred from provisioning. These are
typically transactions that when executed together have
no potential for mitigation, or there is no business justification
for an assignment of conflicting access rights. Whatever the
classification notation may be, it is important for the company
to prioritize the conflicts so that remediation and management
of the user population can be focused on those conflicts with
the greatest potential for risk reduction.
The correct assessment and definitions of how to manage each
of the risk ratings is a key factor in delivering benefits from a
risk-based approach.

Insights on governance, risk and compliance | May 2010

Testing considerations

The tone at the top drives the level of commitment from all
personnel. Many companies fail by placing little emphasis on
SoD, resulting in significant concerns or worse, pervasive fraud
and control breakdown.

IT, finance and other management stakeholders must take

co-ownership of the SoD process. Finance understands the
financial impact associated with the business processes, risks
and mitigating controls better than any other function. Business
management will have the clearest view on the operational
impact. IT understands how to translate that into system data,
reporting and technical remediation. Either way, one organization
cannot simply point to the other or transfer responsibility to the
other party.
In our experience where the driver for an SoD initiative has been
an audit finding, it becomes extremely important for the company
to work with its auditors on a regular basis. The auditors can often
provide advice and feedback, helping to keep the process focused
on risk rather than over-compliance.

Inf
or
m

SoD is not a project, but a process. It needs to continue into

the future. The longer term undertaking is much easier if tasks
are performed properly early on, thus an investment in sound
practices and processes today will inevitably yield savings down
the road.

Where a specific compliance deadline is driving an organization

to address SoD, the timing of testing is critical. A company
should not wait until the last minute to conduct the activities.
Allowing for adequate time can help when controls need to be
remediated and retested, or user access needs to be modified in
the system. The testing timeline should be developed with the
input of key business and IT stakeholders and the audit team(s).
Proactive involvement of the auditors helps prevent unnecessary
audit fees and allows for streamlined, efficient testing and reporting.

nology
tech
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Access
enforcement
and gatekeeper

Fina
nc
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Successful
SoD governance
exists as a
partnership
between IT
and Finance

Business rules
and process
denition

Internal audit

Internally verify control performance

and effectiveness

External audit

Externally attest to control performance

and effectiveness

Insights on governance, risk and compliance | May 2010

The SoD roadmap

Phase 4: Mitigation
As suggested by the name, mitigation is the next step in limiting the potential impact of an SoD conflict violation. This mitigation phase
can be completed concurrently with remediation; or depending on the objectives and compliance time frame, mitigation can be performed
last, when conflicts have been reduced to their absolute minimum. Mitigation looks at each of the identified SoD conflicts and asks, Which
control is in operation to reduce the residual risk of a particular SoD conflict such that it does not pose a significant threat to the business?
In other words, can the company identify any existing controls that will prevent or detect the unauthorized or fraudulent activity? Many
companies will choose to mitigate every potential conflict in order to have a safety net of control in place should a conflict arise. This is a
sound and practical strategy for companies looking to control unforeseen or unpredictable risk.
Mitigation does not fix or correct the conflict; rather, it allows for
the conflict to exist in the system and creates or cites existing
controls that compensate for the risk of excessive access. When a
company chooses to mitigate an SoD conflict, it accepts the risk
associated with that conflict and attempts to compensate through
the use of application, IT-dependent or manual controls (or some
combination thereof). For example, a mitigating control typically
seen in the vendor master update or vendor payment scenario is
the use of automated approvals for vendor check writing or the use
of month-end vendor reconciliations or reviews. These detective
controls may provide management the comfort needed to allow the
SoD conflict to exist while catching unauthorized activity through its
financial controls.

When leveraging mitigating controls, management should develop

a conflict-by-conflict analysis to document the existence of specific
key controls that mitigate the risk related to the particular conflict.
Management and the auditors can assess the strength of the
mitigating controls and conclude the appropriate level of reliance to
be placed on the controls ability to manage to an acceptable level
risk. This important aspect of the risk-based approach enables
management to accept that certain conflicts will exist within their
pre-defined tolerated levels of risk, thereby determining their
residual risk threshold.

Insights on governance, risk and compliance | May 2010

Mitigation considerations

F
or financial risks, document the financial statement assertions
related to the conflict risk. Specifically, the assertions and
objectives addressed by the cited mitigating controls are:

conflicts as this control is too general; granularity of controls

is important when attempting to detect and prevent fraud or
material misstatement. The conflict matrix should document
precisely why each control mitigates the specific conflict risk.
This will enable management to more effectively address risk and
serves as a justification to auditors and regulators as to why the
control was selected and its relevance as a mitigating factor.

Completeness
Rights and obligations
Valuation or allocation
Existence or occurrence
Presentation and disclosure

ist who (name and job title) performs each of the mitigating
L
controls in the company, since it is important to know if the
person performing the mitigating control is also one of the
conflicted users. The level of reliance that can be placed on the
mitigating control is greatly reduced (if not eliminated entirely)
when personnel who are in the conflicted population also
perform the mitigating controls. Ideally, this scenario should be
remedied through reassignment of the control to another nonconflicted user or elimination of the user from one or both of the
conflicting sensitive transactions.

I n some cases, the company can mitigate an entire application or

system without conducting any testing to determine the number
of conflicted users in the system. Should the company find that
there are a limited number of users in the system or the system
covers a small number of potential conflicts (such as update
vendor master), a memo explaining why testing does not need to
be performed may be sufficient.

This is important as it enables the company to demonstrate that

the assertions related to the mitigating controls adequately
address the assertions related to the conflict risk. The external
auditor may also request that the controls map to their audit
framework or methodology; it is advisable to work with the
auditor to determine the relevant frameworks to which the
mitigating controls are mapped.

More than one mitigating control can address a conflict.

Implementing a balance of preventative and detective controls
helps manage the risk should one control fail and supports the
use of a risk-based approach. While there is no ideal number
of controls, a good rule of thumb is: more than one control is
preferred, but one well-designed control is better than ten that
do not compensate for the risk of the conflict. Mitigating controls
should address a precise risk. Generally, it is insufficient to deploy
budget to actual reviews as the mitigating control for all SoD

Insights on governance, risk and compliance | May 2010

The SoD roadmap

Phase 5: Remediation
The goal of the remediation phase is the permanent correction of SoD conflicts. Remediation techniques include role redesign, role
cleanup, user appropriateness review and SoD tool implementation. A combination of people, process and technology changes help sustain
effective control and compliance. There is no proscribed leading practice or method for remediating conflicts. Every scenario is unique,
based on the degree of complexity and extent of the conflicts in a given environment.
Remediation initiatives generally fall into two categories: tactical cleanup of the user population and strategic role redesign. The
tactical component represents the items that can be addressed quickly, while role development typically involves a full complement of
organizational changes in people, process and technology. The choice of tactical or strategic paths is not an either-or proposition; most
companies execute a combination of approaches in a phased time frame. The decision to pursue a particular remediation path depends on
the complexity, degree of severity of the SoD conflicts and the mandated time line.

Tactical role clean up

Tactical user population clean up refers to the process of reviewing
the role or security model to evaluate whether both sides of the
conflicting transactions are required for a particular user to do his
or her job. This clean up process requires the company to analyze a
particular role and the conflicts that exist within that role in order to
establish a clean, conflict-free role or security model.
Misconfigured roles and security models are often the source
of SoD conflicts. For example, some applications are configured
for maximum flexibility and agility in other words, anyone can
do anything. While this creates a very easy-to-use and flexible
system, it can also result in control deficiencies if access is not
separated through the customization of roles. Many companies
have developed the security aspects of enterprise roles without
considering the sensitive transactions that must be segregated.
Roles alone cannot be used to test for SoD conflicts; rather, a
company must look to the lowest level of security (i.e., menu item,
screen, executable, transaction code) that make up a particular
role to understand what transactions a user can execute. However,
roles can be leveraged to correct SoD conflicts by creating a known
effective role model, thereby establishing consistent enforcement
of that model through the applications security controls. This
short-term tactical role redesign can often easily correct many
conflicts, while leaving the more difficult user conflicts to be
addressed through a strategic approach.

Once remediation is completed, relevant people, process and

technology governance activities must remain in place to help
ensure the situation does not arise again. It is critical to assign
accountability for the tasks of role maintenance, user
administration and SoD rule definitions. Periodic testing and
conflict checks should be incorporated into provisioning processes.
A critical success factor is to support the redesigned processes
with the appropriate technology. For small organizations with very
simple applications, this may be managed with a basic solution
such as a spreadsheet which captures the conflicting activities
and can perform straight-forward analysis to determine whether
a users access will result in SoD issues. However, for medium
and large organizations (over 500 users) with more complex
applications (e.g., ERPs such as SAP and Oracle), an access
control tool will almost certainly be required to enable an efficient
and sustainable solution. That said, while there are a number of
third-party applications that facilitate testing, mitigation and some
remediation activities, they do not replace the necessity for a sound
methodology based on the business risk to the company.

Remediation return on investment

Initial investment in the people, processes and technology
governing the SoD process can potentially yield:

Strategic role redesign

Reduced business risk

Strategic role redesign seeks to define what constitutes SoD conflictfree access across the company. It maps job function and responsibility
in the business to the required access rights in each system. This
approach is typically used when the existing role model is heavily
conflicted and cannot be salvaged through cleanup initiatives.
Strategic role design builds sustainable capabilities and processes
that serve to maintain the cleaned role structure.

Lower incidence of control features

10

Avoidance of regulatory fines

Savings in consulting hours
A better control environment

Insights on governance, risk and compliance | May 2010

Remediation considerations
Master record source When a company establishes a master
of the user population determining whether users should have
record source, it has taken the first step in understanding the
access to a particular role or group can correct this situation.
conflicting access rights in the system. A master record source
A simple check of the user population, in the context of job title
is a single view of the user population and all associated access
or function, can be used to identify such SoD conflicts. Once
rights of users. Since many companies maintain disparate and
identified, such SoD conflicts can be eliminated.
disconnected user databases, this task is often more challenging
Non-standard IDs Non-standard user IDs and accounts indicate
than it sounds. The undertaking is easier when supported by
deviations from the standard naming conventions of the company.
policies such as standard user ID naming conventions. This makes
These accounts should be investigated for inappropriate access
it less difficult to compare a user ID for conflicting access across
and potentially changed to meet company policy naming
multiple systems. Otherwise, user IDs with a common identifying
conventions. For example, if the standard naming convention
trait such as employee number, email address and user ID must
is the first initial of the first name plus the last name (i.e., John
be linked across various systems. For a company with thousands of
Smith is jsmith), specific attention should be paid to naming
employees and dozens of systems, this process can be tedious but it
conventions outside this policy. Thus, if instead of seeing jsmith
is necessary for an accurate view of the conflicts.
one noted john.smith, this should raise an alarm and be investigated
Default access Star or default access (known by many names
for inappropriate access. The risk is that this user may have
depending on the system) provides the standard set of access rights
multiple accounts that, when used in combination, constitute
to every user registered on that application. This default access
inappropriate access per the defined SoD business definition.
provides a user with the systems standard minimum functionality.
Terminated employees Though expired and terminated user
For example, all users of a particular system should be able to
accounts fall within the realm of logical access, examining the
see the log-in screen, help menu and policy banner screen. These
current user population for terminated employees from the
three screens or menus would be considered default access. Risk
human resources (HR) list is vital. This step not only reduces the
arises when companies assign default access to sensitive menus,
number of users to be analyzed, but establishes the population
transactions or security levels. Default access should be assigned
on which to base the SoD testing and may even help reduce
sparingly and careful consideration given to any menu or security
licensing costs.
level to which it has been assigned.
System access Users with direct access to the lowest level
Roles Roles are helpful to the management of any IT system
of security (i.e., menus, screens, transaction codes) should be
in that they streamline the assignment of access rights and
carefully analyzed. This represents a potential security loophole
provisioning by aligning system access with job responsibility or
since individual users may be able to gain access rights without
function. This built-in logic enables non-IT personnel to assign
following the standard user administration process. The problem
required access when an employee is on-boarded. Yet for many
often occurs when consultants, contractors or specialists require
businesses, the notion of roles is highly complex and controversial.
access to specific system functionality and bypass roles in favor
Whether a company chooses to define its roles within one system
of assignment to individual menu items or screens outside the
or across many systems, SoD testing should be considered beyond
normal provisioning process.
the role level to account for various, discrete access rights.
System accounts Generic, shared and powerful system accounts
Many companies simply stop at the role level and do not seek to
(that users can log into) present a challenge as it is impossible
understand the security and access rights that constitute that
to tell with certainty who has used that specific account. Since
role, yet conflicts are frequently identified within the role itself.
the SoD analysis is concerned with individual users who have
Management will not uncover these issues through role testing alone.
the ability to execute sensitive transactions, generic or shared
Reviews User appropriateness reviews provide an easy and
accounts (especially shared super user accounts) negate the
effective way to reduce the number of SoD conflicts revealed
aim of the analysis. Powerful system accounts only present a
in the testing process. The activities of users without proper
problem when these accounts are not locked-down and can be
authorization and documented access can make it difficult for the
logged into by users of the system. These unsecure accounts
company to define proper user access levels. Companies often
limit the ability to monitor who is executing which sensitive
find that users are granted additional access over time as their
transaction. All that is known is the responsible account, not the
responsibilities and job functions change, but the de-provisioning
actual user. To prevent unauthorized activity, the company should
of unnecessary (or inappropriate) access does not always happen,
ensure that it is not possible for a user to log into the system or
thereby further compounding the SoD problem. A careful review
process accounts.

Insights on governance, risk and compliance | May 2010

11

Conclusion

SoD remains an integral part of a companys internal controls. While

the appropriate level of effort and emphasis needs to be placed on
SoD compliance, companies must also continue to strive for simplicity
and precision in the execution of their controls. SoD presents a unique
challenge to control compliance as it requires close alignment of
business and IT stakeholders to assess, mitigate, reduce and monitor
the risk of fraud or material misstatement.
Spending money on applications and tools alone will not fix deficient
processes. Similarly, expecting improvement over time without a
continued focus on the risks they are addressing or value that is being
protected is not a sustainable compliance or IT strategy. Management
must take a step back and ask what is the enterprise trying to
accomplish through SoD. A well-designed, risk-based SoD initiative
can enable compliance, and also demonstrate real business value
by enhancing controls while improving, streamlining and efficiently
redesigning key business and IT processes.

12

Insights on governance, risk and compliance | May 2010

About Ernst & Young

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Insights on governance, risk and compliance | May 2010

13

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